Move On
by TheSilentPen
Summary: 'I want to do right by you, Rachel.' Rachel tries to move on. But Quinn doesn't seem to want to give up that easily. Companion to 'Cheater,' 'Confused,' and 'Cheap Imitation.'


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Glee or any of its characters (I do own Justin Adkins, however :) )

**A/N:** Another one from the **Cheater** series (I'm trying to look for a better name for the whole little mini-series, have any suggestions). If you haven't read these stories before, I suggest you read **Cheater**, **Confused**, and **Cheap Imitation** before you engage in this. I'm sorry to everyone who's waiting for **Just A Kiss**, but I've been REALLY busy lately. If you'd like to know what I'm doing-in real life or in writing- follow me on my Tumblr (the link is on my **profile page**). You can ask questions (again, my only condition is that they're not inappropriate), etc. Anyway, please **read, review, **and, most importantly **enjoy**. :)

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><p><strong>Move On<strong>

TheSilentPen

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><p>There's only so long you can pretend that the gaping hole in your heart isn't eating away at your sanity.<p>

And there's only such a limited amount of time that you can deny the existence of that torn, oozing, infected flesh rotting away in your chest, beating weakly against the steel bars that you've carefully set around the perimeter of the lacerated organ.

But there's really nothing that you can do to help ease yourself forward, because you think you've tried it all.

Burying yourself in books. In the music you once so fervently loved and dedicated yourself to.

Because before Quinn Fabray came into your life, music was the only thing that you had fill the lonely hours of the day. It was your friend. The only confidant that you could trust yourself to speak into and be unafraid of the repercussions.

But Quinn Fabray tore that protection asunder with her cruel, wanting hands and made you trust her. Made you **love** her more than anything else in the world. She bewitched you, transfigured you into a co-dependent, emotionless drone that only came alive in her wicked presence.

She threw you from the Garden of Eden, wrenched you from the sweet, comfortable embrace of the music that you coveted with every fiber of your being. She made you a heretic, worshipping the pagan symbol of her beauty as you fell from the love of your friends, family, and all other things that defined Rachel Berry: Future Broadway Extraordinaire.

You gave her everything that you could give her. Your time. Your love. Your absolute fidelity and trust, and she threw it back into your face for a blond muscle-head with an affinity for SciFi films and the ability to speak some sort of demented fanboy blue-man language.

**She** threw **you** away for **him**. She couldn't be **honest** with you.

She couldn't **tell** you she didn't want you before she climbed into bed with him on the same bed _you_ lost your virginity on.

You had to **watch** her twist and writhe beneath him, cry out his name in the throes of passion in order to find out about her betrayal.

And that's _truly_ what hurt the most.

The fact that she couldn't tell you the truth and set you free before you grew too attached. The fact that she wanted to keep you strung up on a fucking _leash_ while she remained free to do as she pleased.

And after you dump her, you feel fine for quite some time. You're comfortable in your own skin, and you can't recall a time when you've ever had more friends.

You and Kurt are on friendly terms. You get together for the occasional musical night, along with a short traipse through the local mall so he can fix your 'sad' fashion sense. He **alone**, of all the Glee Kids, had taken it upon himself to rehabilitate the broken shards of your being. He gathered them up in his arms and pieced them together to create you as you are now: silent, contemplative, yet cheery as needed with a somewhat 'skate inspired' edge to your clothing.

Santana has a mutual respect for you, and Brittany adores you to the point of giving you daily hugs in each class the two of you share together.

Shortly thereafter, Tina, Mike, and Mercedes joined the reluctant 'Rachel Berry rehabilitation scene' with hesitancy wrought about their features. But eventually they'd grown to be some of your greatest allies.

They could sympathize with you. Make you feel better about yourself during the day. They kept your mind busy and your hands from falling idle. So much so that when you passed a pleading-eyed Quinn Fabray in the hall, you're able to resist the temptation to give into those apologetic hazel orbs and continue down the hall unaffected.

You're able to turn a blind eye to the attentions that she showers the new girl, Dagne Eastrule, with all the attention that **you** were never given. Smiles that you never had. The gentle, almost shy consideration that Quinn showers her with each and every single day.

Attention you strived, craved more than anything when you belonged to Quinn Fabray. You fought for it as she asphyxiated you ever so slowly with that fucking noose that she so delighted tightening about your neck with every single _wrong_ thing that you did.

Dagne gets all the things you _never_ had. All the things you _worked_ for.

But it didn't matter to you.

At least, it didn't before that fucking drunk kiss.

It set you on fire, made you think of those scant good moments in your relationship. The first few months of sweet smiles, warm hands, sweet kisses, and honeyed lies being whispered into your ears. Of the gentle beat of her heart beneath your ear as you lay in his strong arms after a night of passionate touches and impassioned cries.

She broke every damn barrier around your heart and made you _feel_ something for her again. Made you **care**.

Once again, Quinn Fabray ruined _everything_ good in your life and there's nothing you can do to escape it.

You struggle, you try to move on. You drown yourself in Puck's weekly 'bro' nights and play video games till you throw down the controller in frustration and sob into his strong arms. You listen to Kurt whisper promises of a better life, of a better _person_ waiting for you beyond this damn cow town. You listen to him tell you that someday, you're going to get everything you've ever wanted: you're going to be a famous Broadway singer and you're going to have _everything_ you've ever wanted.

It helps to lessen the pain. Apply a fresh injection of numbing drug to lessen the magnitude of seeing Dagne in Quinn's arms. But it **doesn't** take all the pain away.

One night, you find yourself in the smoky, hazy interior of Lima's **only** bar, sitting at the counter with Puck at your side, rapping your scarred knuckles against the counter, sipping idly at your Coke (the one time that you drank yourself blind, you swore to **never** touch alcohol again).

It's just another Friday night. Another night for you to wallow in your memories of your failed romance and self-pity because you just _can't_ seem to get fucking Quinn Fabray out of your head, despite **everything** she's ever done to you.

There's a slight shift beside you, and the chink of a fresh glass being placed onto the granite countertop. The gentle creak of a chair draws your attention over to your right side.

There's a man sitting next to you, fingers drawn up to lean against the counter, hiding a strong line of a mouth, strong jaw clenched as greenish-gray eyes observe the bubbles floating to the surface of the dark liquid.

He has to be at least as old as you: eighteen or nineteen. His face is thin, rugged, and clean-shaven. Messy, spiked black locks fall messily into those wondrous eyes as the teenager drums an idle beat against the side of his glass.

Emerald eyes meet your own gaze, bearing heavily into you, robbing you of air. A connection sizzles between the two of you, and soon you find yourself talking with the stranger in low, soft tones.

The man introduces himself to you as Justin Adkins. He's new to Ohio from Palo Alto, California where he sang in a local rock band.

It's his first weekend in Ohio, and he tells you he feels **very** out of place because he's lived his entire life in Palo Alto. He'd known most of his friends, he says, since kindergarten. It was hard adjusting without them there beside him.

And as you speak to Justin, you learn that you and he aren't really that different at all.

You both have an overbearing love for music and both of you have lost something precious to you: him without a choice, you by dishonesty.

You don't relate on all levels, but there's a connection. A connection that he seems to feel as well, because as you drag a drunk Noah to the car, Justin helps you heft him off his feet and programs his number into your phone.

You start to see more and more of Justin about each day. Whether you walk together from class to class (you found out, after a random glance through the hall, that he'd transferred into McKinley after a relatively 'unmemorable'—as he described it—week at Carmel), or ate lunch at the same table, he never seems far away.

It's a bit of a comfort. Because Justin can sit and listen to you talk attentively without rendering any sort of premature judgment. He can offer constructive criticism, or just provide stimulating conversation.

Quinn disappears into the back of your mind.

You tell him, after a couple months, the sad story of your relationship and how you ended up at the bar the night you met him.

He sits on the stool in your kitchen, looking directly into your eyes, shaking his head and asking a question here and there. His eyes flicker with some sort of understanding when you describe every emotion and stray thought that has run through your mind the past few months.

The pressure seems to lift from your shoulders. By the end of the conversation, you feel so utterly light that you're almost awed by the magnitude of the confession. The steady drip of water on your fingers alerts you to the fact that you're crying.

But crying has **never** felt so liberating before.

Justin brings a tentative finger to brush against your cheek, wiping away each trail of salt with a serene smile on his face. He holds you to his chest and whispers comforting things into your ear, idly tracing patterns on your back and pressing soft kisses to your forehead.

Several minutes pass before you gain control of yourself against, and once more, you find yourself looking into those wondrous green eyes with something akin to awe and gratitude.

The grayish irises shine with an emotion that makes your stomach roll with nameless emotion. It's not the uncomfortable, disgusting churning you felt when you dated Finn, or the nervous 'butterflies in my stomach' nausea that plagued you whenever Quinn would throw a rare smile your way.

But there's something warm in it… almost like it _could_ become something else. But you don't know what… and you're not sure if you _want_ to know.

You've been hurt so many times in your life…

What makes Justin any different from the people who have hurt you in your life?

What makes him any different than Quinn?

All reasoning leaves your mind as the boy leans forward, eyes slipping closed. A light, warm pressure finds its way to your lips as a chapped, thin surface moves softly against them.

And again, you draw comparisons. Quinn's kiss would set you afire in so many different ways, and Finn's made you feel nothing. Here, you feel a bit of a warm spark… but it's _still_ not the same all-consuming inferno that would encompass you with _Quinn_.

Then again, hasn't _everything_ paled in comparison to her?

But Justin's the **best** thing that's happened to you in a long time. And so you find yourself pressing another kiss to his lips, thoughts of soft lips and blonde hair as far from your mind as can be.

The next day, you find out something shocking when you arrive to school.

Quinn dumped Dagne.

Perfect, timid little Dagne Eastrule, with her soft voice and perfection. The one you saw Quinn treat so reverently over the several months.

She _broke_ her, you tighten your hand against the lock on your locker as you watch Dagne's small figure off in the distance, her head down and shoulders slumped with her eyes rimmed an angry red.

In Dagne's crumpled figure, you can see yourself after your _own _breakup. Almost an exact image, etched into your mind's eye and played out in reality in the senior's defeated figure, right down to the intense melancholy in her eyes.

Gray eyes flicker their way to yours, and the girl's face transforms itself. Its sorrowful creases etched into resentment as a reddish lip curves in a sardonic grimace. There's such a sense of pure loathing poured into the way she looks at you, in her stance, and in the way that she clasps at her locker that you're alarmed.

Dagne has never been anything _but_ kind to you, something that you've always admired about her. You've returned that favor in kind and respect her more than anyone else (besides Justin) on campus.

_Why_ is she looking at you like that? _What _did you do to transform someone so pure into a monster of a woman who resorts to cruel, cutting glares across the hallway?

The answer comes almost immediately with the slam of a locker down the hall.

_**Quinn Fabray**_.

Quinn Fabray who seems dead to Dagne's angry glares that fly back and forth between you and her ex's lithe figure. Quinn Fabray who tore you apart so terribly and left you in shambles while she lay in the tainted arms of the school's quarterback.

Quinn Fabray, who is standing in front of you, worrying her lip between a pair of blindingly white teeth, hands shoved into her jean pockets as she looks shyly at you.

"Hi Rachel," she says softly, looking at you from behind a pair of dark lashes.

You close your locker cautiously, feeling very unsettled by the girl's presence. It's been a _long _time since the two of you talked. Sober, at least.

And back when she _did_ talk to you, you believed every one of her deluded words.

You won't let her trick you **again**.

"Hello Quinn," you say cordially, shifting your books to your right arm and leaning against the looking stiffly. "What do you want?"

You didn't mean to come across so bluntly, but there's an odd sort of satisfaction that comes from seeing her look noticeably more nervous than before.

Good. She deserves it for all of that fucking shit she did to **you**.

To _Dagne_.

"I-I just wanted to…" she freezes momentarily, closing her eyes before drawing in a deep breath. Her shoulders slacken and she looks at you with this inscrutable look wrought across her features, hazel orbs featuring a softness that you've **never** seen on Quinn Fabray.

"Yes?" you question, _trying_ to sound bored. You watch her fidget under your gaze confusedly, alertness burning in your muscles that cry for you to **run** for your own self-preservation. But you stay there, rooted to the spot, because you've never been one to run away from anything.

Melancholy floods Quinn's features as she puts a hand to lean against the lockers, seemingly for strength. "I… I just want to say that… I'm sorry."

Shock floods your system, and it must be showing on your face too, because Quinn's looking at you hopefully. You shove it down and try to hide once more behind a mask of nonchalance. "I'm not doing this, Quinn." You slam your locker door shut and tug on the lock before heading down the hall.

She follows after you, pulling on your shoulder and forcing you around. "Please, Rachel, you **have** to listen to me."

"I don't see why," you spit, tightening your binder against your chest, eyes darting about the busy halls, "I have to listen to a dishonest, blonde whore who didn't have the courage to break up with me _before_ sleeping with the school's biggest tool."

Your words wound her, you can see it in the way her eyes flash with hurt. But she presses through, pushing you against the wall. "Because I'm _sorry_, Rachel! I was a fucking slut and I didn't think about anyone but myself. And it's taken several months of drinking myself blind and being _miserable_ to understand how to be a decent human being."

"I'm so happy you found out you were an ass," you deadpan. "But that doesn't diminish from the fact that you stepped over **so** many people to find yourself. And that doesn't explain why **you're** here talking to me."

"I'm here because I hurt you the most, Rach," she looks sincere as those eyes sparkle with tears, but you won't remove your guard. "And… during the last few months I've fucking realized what a hell it's like… being without you."

"Quinn…" you whisper, pressing yourself farther against the wall.

A finger comes to trace your cheek bone, making you shiver as lips draw close to your own. You can hear people talking in the hall behind you, and your vision blurs to focus in on Quinn Fabray's every little touch.

"I want to do right by you, Rachel," she whispered softly. "I spent three months. Three damn months pretending someone else was you. But it was a **mistake**, because she doesn't smell like you…"

"_Stop_ it," you whisper, closing your eyes. God, this can't be happening.

The fingers gently cup your cheek. "She doesn't _feel_ like you…"

Lips press a gentle kiss next to your own. "_Fuck_, Rach… she **isn't** you."

Your mind cries out against her caresses. You want to scream and shove her away and shout expletives into her face. But you can't _unlearn_ Quinn Fabray.

Not when your **heart** still belongs to her.

"Rachel?"

The smoothing caresses pause against your cheek and reddish lips distance themselves from your own as Quinn turns around to look at the intruder.

You want to cry with relief. _Justin_. Justin's here to save you.

You move away from the wall and press yourself into his side. He throws a protective arm over your shoulder and draws light patterns against your arm. He knows. He understands.

Quinn's eyes find the fingers wrapped possessively around your arm and devastation fills those beautiful hazel orbs. Her fists clench as she takes in Justin's lumbering stance over you. "Rachel… who is this?" Her voice is strained.

"I'm Justin," he cuts in, pulling you closer against his side, grayish-greens flashing. "Justin Adkins. Rachel's _boyfriend_."

Something akin to agony and disbelief slathers itself across Quinn's beautiful face as she looks to you. "…Is that _true_, Rach?"

You draw in a shuddering breath. "Yes."

A single tear trails down Quinn's cheek. You feel terrible inside, but still you press yourself further into Justin's side and grasp his gentle, large hand tighter in your own.

A curtain of blonde hair hides the falling tears from your view. Quinn's shoulders tremble as she fights. Fights against whatever sort of emotion you think she's keeping from you. "I see."

The bells rings somewhere off in the distance. People file back down the hall and make their way toward their classroom as you three stand in the hallway, stuck amidst the flow of time.

Quinn fights to get herself under control, and only when her sobs cease does she look up at you with some sort of unknown determination in her eyes.

"You love me," she whispers. You feel Justin clench his fist, but he remains silent next to you (he told you he would **always** leave _everything_ up to you. That he'd **never** get involved in anything you didn't want him to).

"I don't," you deny, shaking your head. It feels like the biggest lie you've ever told. It makes your mouth go absolutely dry. "I haven't for a while now."

Hazel turns to violent green as she studies you. "You're lying to me, Rachel."

"Would you know lies from the truth?" you snap. "Because all you've done is lie your whole life. I doubt you're capable of recognizing truth."

"Being a liar makes me capable of _knowing_ one," she counters. She stays silent for a moment before looking directly into chocolate browns. "I'm not giving up on you."

"And I'm not giving _her_ up," your boyfriend's deep baritone interjects.

Angry hazel meets calm gray. A silent storm builds between the two of them, and you want to kick and scream and **shout** at Quinn to just _leave you alone_.

But you know you can't.

Quinn's gaze softens as her eyes fall to you once more before she turns on her heel and heads down the hall.

You feel Justin's tense muscles loosen as he presses a gentle kiss to your forehead.

You can't feel it though. All sound is mute and your body feels numb.

Later on, as you stand in the bathroom, staring at the mirror and taking in each and every little change from the past year, you find yourself staring through the mirror at Dagne Eastrule's resentful features.

She comes up behind you, places a hand on the sink before you, searching your reflection with some sort of inscrutable detail. Her eyes flicker between the two of you before she leans forward, pressing her lips against your ear.

"She never saw me," the voice is bitter, jaded in its loathsome, beautiful huskiness. "She only saw **you**."

And as she leaves you alone, she whispers something that makes you tremble.

"It was **always** you."

You clench the porcelain of the sink, bowing your head down and biting at your lip.

You've never been able to escape Quinn Fabray.

But you're sure as hell going to try.

You look up into your own determined orbs.

You're going to **try**.

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><p><strong>AN:** Are you cheering for Quinn, or are you hoping Rachel has the emotional fortitude to resist? **Reviews** are always appreciated...


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